Lament for abc1

I turned on my TV today and shock, horror! My favourite channel, abc1, is no more...

Now those of you who have lived in Britain will know that British TV, for the most part, is pretty much well mindless drivel. And they pay for this privilege, you know, somewhere in the region of £135 a year - the dreaded TV licence. All to watch crap on TV.

Mainstream TV consists of 5 channels - BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 are ok, I mean, at the moment ITV are televising the Rugby World Cup, so that's pretty cool, Channel 5 has CSI, Grey's Anatomy and House, Channel 4 I think might show ER occasionally - but the BBC? The stuff you really pay your licence for? Drivel... Like for example, tonight. BBC1's Saturday night entertainment (now I know, most normal people are out on a Saturday night, but hey, I've been out all day in town, so I'm entitled to a Saturday night in) consists of "The World's Greatest Elvis", "The National Lottery", "Casualty" (a pile of poop if ever I saw it), and then "The Vicar of Dibley" (at last, something remotely watchable). As for BBC2, well. They're showing "The Blue Planet", "Michael Palin's New Europe" (actually that's not so bad as its a doco about Eastern Europe, where I've just been on the BEAMET), then "Who Do You Think You Are" (tonight is featuring Stephen Fry and his Jewish roots). I'm just so glad I have a DVD player...

The only way to escape this mindless assault on your intelligence is to do one of two things - either pay up big and get cable (Sky or Telewest, depending on your connection and availability for your area), or you can buy a set top box (most new TVs come with this as standard) and get the lovely Freeview. Aah, the freeview. You get something like 40 odd channels for FREE!

But before you get too excited, they're not exactly top of the pops type channels - I mean, seriously, like I'm gonna want to watch Teacher's TV, or price-drop TV, or something. But the one redeeming factor of freeview is, until today - it had abc1. Comedy for 12 hours of the day. Shows like Scrubs, Home Improvement, Hope and Faith, 8 Simple Rules... shows I could actually watch, shows I actually liked. Now gone.

Alas. Anyway, I did a bit of an internet search to find out why abc1 is no more, and alas - Disney, who owns abc1, has decided to stop broadcasting it. Noooooo... back to lovefilm and Blockbuster, I guess...